


A Different Sky / New Worlds to Gaze Upon

by Revolutionnaire_e



Series: Magtober [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:01:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26812573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Revolutionnaire_e/pseuds/Revolutionnaire_e
Summary: Statement of Rosalie Winters regarding another sky. Original statement given October 1st, 2016.Statement begins.Magtober Day I: Statement
Series: Magtober [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1955563
Comments: 9
Kudos: 3





	A Different Sky / New Worlds to Gaze Upon

_Statement of Rosalie Winters regarding another sky. Original statement given October 1st, 2016. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London._

_Statement begins._

When I was a child, there was nothing I loved more than the stars. I spent my nights on the pier, simply staring up at the sky, tracing the constellations. I never understood their patterns—what makes those dots a hunter? A queen or a fish? But they were familiar, though. No matter what seemed to go wrong, they were always there, shining down upon the water.

I remember that night, the crash of the waves against the docks, the faded warmth of early autumn, the silence. My _god_ , the silence. It was that thick, bitter silence which burns deep through your skin, leaving you just as quiet as the air around you. It was not an unfamiliar feeling, though certainly less than pleasant. 

I don’t know what compelled me to stay, maybe the weather or the familiarity? Or maybe it was the stars. I could always rely on the stars. They would always be beautiful, always predictable. They each have their places, their routines and dances. Cassiopea will always be in the north, Ophiuchus takes centre stage in July. It’s comforting, knowing precisely where everything will be. Nothing like real life. Exactly like I wish it was.

It’s funny how long it took me to notice. I probably didn’t think to question it. Or maybe I was simply too focused on the silence. It had always been the silence that drew me, drowning out everything else. 

But as I watched the sky, I began to see incongruities, stars which weren’t quite right, patterns I didn’t recognise. Or maybe it was the fact that I _did_ recognise the patterns which alerted me that something was off. There were pictures, messages for me, and me alone—they told me stories, unfamiliar myths shifting above me like a flickering cinema. 

The stars were never supposed to make sense, at least, not in this way. The constellations are abstract, subjective. They don’t truly represent anything, just arbitrary connections to keep them in their place. There could only be one explanation, I realised. This was not the sky, or more accurately, this was not _my_ sky. 

Yet, I simply sat there, so entranced by those alien stars that I didn’t even notice when I had lost the land.

For centuries, mankind believed that if you kept sailing, there would reach a point at which it would just _stop_ —you’d simply fall. As I looked out at the infinite sea surrounding that tiny pier, I truly understood what it meant to be sitting at the end of the world. I was alone in the truest sense of the word, and in that moment, I knew that if I were to fall, I too, would enter the void.

And I did. In a horrible instant, I felt myself drop into the waters. Or maybe it was the sky, though I’m not sure if there is a difference. I’ve never felt such an all-consuming existential nausea as I did when I fell. I was overwhelmed by vertigo, and I simply did the only thing I could think of. I shut my eyes.

Hours passed, or maybe it was centuries or only seconds. I could not tell, nor did I care if there was a difference. What is an hour in the eyes of eternity? A century? But nonetheless, there came a time when all went cold. It was only then that I blacked out.

I don’t recall what happened after that, I only remember waking up in a hospital bed. They said I was found waterlogged under the docks. They said that I had lied there for hours, unnoticed. They said that I was only found when a local fisherman noticed the glint of an earring. They said that I shouldn’t be alive.

For weeks, I avoided the night sky. If even it was unpredictable, what hope did I have for the rest of my life? I kept up my routine well enough, but it felt empty. I thought emptiness was preferable to uncertainty. I kept away from everything I held dear, lest they get corrupted as well. Only in sleep could I not try in vain to pretend that it was all imagined, that I simply fell off the dock, my brain producing that strange vision as I came brushed my hand against death’s. 

Last night I watched the stars again. I could see all the familiar constellations that I’ve always known: Cassiopea in the north, Cyangus centre-stage. Everything was precisely where it should be. But, as I stared out at the waters, I couldn’t help but notice how the ripples distorted the night sky, how the reflections began to shift into those unfamiliar patterns. 

I worry that I will never escape that alien sky, that it will stalk me until my dying days. And that when I do die, I will once more find myself alone on that tiny pier, simply staring out at eternity.

_Statement ends._

**Author's Note:**

> My apologies for using Br*tish spelling to keep up appearances. It won't happen again.


End file.
